


The Void Smiles Back

by MalevolentMagpie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dubcon Cuddling, First Meetings, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Sheith Halloween 2020, Somnophilia, TrickOrSheith, new home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentMagpie/pseuds/MalevolentMagpie
Summary: Shiro’s new apartment is old, full of character and memories and perhaps something not entirely human. Shiro doesn’t mind.For Sheith Halloween 2020, Grab Bag #3, prompt: “Shadows.”
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	The Void Smiles Back

Outside, the looming night chilled the air. Neighbors in the aging apartment complex began to head indoors to their warm homes, or else began leaving their homes with scarves and gloves to go out on the town. Indoors, however, Shiro was sweating. He dropped with a heaving sigh the last of the cardboard boxes onto the floor to an answering creak and stretched his aching arms. Matt had made a face at each creaking floorboard and chip of peeling paint on the molding, but Shiro thought they gave the little apartment  _ character.  _ Also, it was cheap.

He surveyed the little studio that was now his. The wooden floorboards were worn with age, and the radiator beneath the sole window was an ancient thing, but everything was clean and the walls were freshly painted. It already felt like home. Cardboard boxes of various sizes were still stacked around him like fortress turrets, but they could wait until the morning. All Shiro wanted to do after a hard day of moving was wash up and sleep. 

After a long, warm shower, he spread his bedroll and prepared to pass out. As tired as he was, it should have been a simple matter, but in the spreading darkness of the room, a strange hint of apprehension prickled up his spine. Nothing looked out of sorts; the room was empty save for the boxes piled in the corner. But the darkness was somehow much thicker than it should have been for such a small room. The air was tense. 

Shiro turned on his side and closed his eyes, willing his body to remember the utter exhaustion it had been feeling mere moments ago. He turned, and turned again, but couldn’t shake the impression of eyes watching him. Each time he surveyed the room, he saw nothing but the blank darkness filling each corner. 

Eventually he was able to drift into a sleep-like state, not quite awake yet vaguely aware of himself and his surroundings. It was in this restless haze that he felt it - a warm coalescence in his surroundings. The shadows of his room seemed to stretch out towards him, tickling his skin, tentative, encircling. The sensation was not unpleasant, though perhaps it should have been. In his dreamlike musing, he likened it to the gentle touch of a lover’s caress. 

He sighed. 

And the darkness sighed back. 

Then Shiro was wide awake. He snapped into full consciousness, suddenly very conscious of lying on his back, in a state of undress significantly different from the one in which he had gone to bed. His blanket was still completely draped over him, but the surface rippled as if a gentle wind moved beneath it. Now, completely awake, he still felt that touch like a whisper of affection sliding over his skin. When he lifted the sheets, however, he found nothing there - only darkness and shadow. 

“What the fuck is going on,” he whispered to himself, even as the warm  _ something _ brushed up the back of his neck to gently scratch the fuzz of his undercut. Shiro shivered. “H- hello?”

The air…  _ pulsed. _

Shiro couldn’t have described it if he had tried, but he had the distinct feeling that something about the fathomless darkness of the shadows in his room  _ shifted _ somehow. Had they gotten darker? Moved? He looked out of the window, half expecting (hoping?) to see a windswept, lamplit tree as the culprit, but there was nothing outside his window. 

“Is some...one there?” said Shiro. He felt slightly foolish talking to thin air, but he was quickly running out of alternative explanations, and the incessant soothing embrace of nothingness was driving him to distraction. ‘Nothing’ wrapped around his arms like an intimate hug and fondly ran its fingers through his fringe. “My name is Shiro,” Shiro whispered again.

An answer came like a thought on the wind.  _ Keith. _

Shiro looked behind him to make sure he hadn’t heard it. Once again, nothing faced him but black shadows. He bit his lip.

“Keith?” He ventured. 

The shadows pulsed again. 

“Ok, ok Takashi,” he muttered to himself. “On the plus side, you’re definitely not imagining things, so that’s good… On the other hand, you’re dealing with a… with…” He looked up to the waiting darkness, and spoke louder this time. “Um, ‘Keith,’ you’re not… human, are you.”

The darkness shifted, then rippled. It seemed that it was building up to something, tightening up into itself, then, so soft that it was hardly discernible from the ambient silence, it answered, “Not quite,” followed by the sound of an amused, husky chuckle like the rustle of autumn leaves in an eddy.

“Oh.” Shiro was breathless. It was such a lovely voice, dry and low, as comforting as the touch of the shady tendrils that even now caressed his back in formless patterns. They moved down his body, lower and… deeper. Shiro sighed again, and it felt as if the shadows closed in above him, cocooning him in warmth - in Keith. His next breath was stolen from his mouth with a brush against his lips. Keith drank him in. Shiro lost himself to the kiss. 

“But, why…?” Shiro mumbled dreamily. 

Keith’s tender hands, or so they felt, combed his hair back with almost familiar affection. “Saw you… Like you…”

Something about the calming void of the dark made such trivial concerns like time and humanity (or lack thereof) fade away into irrelevance. Such things didn’t matter in this moment, under the moon and the beautiful emptiness of the deep, black universe. All that mattered was Keith and Shiro, blooming together into something more.

“I like you too,” Shiro found himself confessing with a blush hidden by the darkness of the night. A blush only the shadows could see.

THE END.


End file.
